Читать книгу The Complete Works of Algernon Blackwood. Novels, Short Stories, Horror Classics, Occult & Supernatural Tales, Plays онлайн

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"Not physically. The man is gentle and safe in every way."

"But there is danger—in your opinion?" insisted the other.

"There is danger—"

"That his influence may make me as himself—an Urmensch?"

"That he may—get you," was the curious answer, given steadily after a moment's pause.

Again the words thrilled O'Malley to the core of his delighted, half-frightened soul. "You really mean that?" he asked again; "as 'doctor and scientist,' you mean it?"

Stahl replied with a solemn anxiety in eyes and voice. "I mean that you have in yourself that 'quality' which makes the proximity of this 'being' dangerous: in a word that he may take you—er—with him."

"Conversion?"

"Appropriation."

They moved further up the deck together for some minutes in silence, but the Irishman's feelings, irritated by the man's prolonged evasion, reached a degree of impatience that was almost anger. "Let us be more definite," he exclaimed at length a trifle hotly. "You mean that I might go insane?"

"Not in the ordinary sense," came the answer without a sign of annoyance or hesitation; "but that something might happen to you—something that science could not recognize and medical science could not treat—"